Kepi Ghoulie and The Copyrights – Reanimation Festival

Now here’s something I’ve never encountered before: a former frontman turned soloist goes back and re-records one of his old band’s albums alongside members in another band.  But that’s exactly that’s exactly what Kepi Ghoulie and The Copyrights have done with seminal pop-punk band The Groovie Ghoulies’ 1997 classic, Reanimation Festival.  About the closest thing I can recount is Streetlight Manifesto re-recording Catch 22’s Keasbey Nights, but even that doesn’t quite fit the bill.  Don’t be confused, this isn’t a split, but a collaborative re-recording in the truest sense.  In this case, Kepi reprises his role as vocalist while The Copyrights take up instrumental duties – and it works.  

I’ll admit, I’ve listened to a smattering of Groovie Ghoulies and Kepi Ghoulie albums over the years, but the discography is vast, and Reanimation Festival isn’t one that I’m terribly familiar with.  I rummaged through the internet to acquaint myself with the original disc, and was pleasantly surprised with how well it held up with the rest of the bands’ output.  That being said, a fresh coat of paint and musical accompaniment being provided by seasoned veterans like The Copyrights arguably make this the tightest and most modern version of the album.  

The original version of Reanimation Festival feels very bare bones in composition.  Groovie Ghoulies were a trio, while The Copyrights and Kepi add up to at least five musicians, allowing the re-recording to experiment with all sorts of extra atmospheric production.  The most prominent change is in The Copyrights’ punchy guitars, which are a little more punk-rock than pop-punk by comparison.  The bass crunches and rumbles with a familiar authority as it thumps alongside Kepi’s distinct nasally pitch.  “Graveyard Girlfriend” is a quick introduction to this more fully fleshed out soundscape. The track further offers an intuitive reminder to the band’s way with words, as their light and fun horror imagery continues to age well.  “Schools Out” is a little more laid back, serving as another fun example of The Groovie Ghoulies knack for providing easy to digest entertainment.  There’s always a good time to be had during tracks like “Zombie Crush,” which expertly melds themes of sci-fi zombies with being under love’s hypnotic trance.  “You’ll have to sew my lips up real real tight because I become a zombie around you,” sings Kepi before the The Copyrights launch into a late song bridge that ups the atmosphere with moody synth and subtle electronics.  There wasn’t room for filler back in 1997, and that hasn’t changed in 2019 either.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be that surprised that this collaboration happened considering that The Copyrights have backed Kepi on stage on numerous occasions.  Nevertheless, it’s uncommon to recruit a full band rather than a group of single musicians.  But I digress. The only thing I can say that would have made this album a little more notable may have been if Fletcher had been invited to contribute to the vocals.  It may have been a little unorthodox, but it seems like a risk that would have been worth taking.  There’s nothing better than a couple of quality pop-punkers trading lines, choruses, and verses.

Placed side by side, both versions of Reanimation Festival retain their own unique twist.  Kepi Ghoulie and The Copyrights’ latest version feels cleanly polished and refined, while revisiting Groovie Ghoulies’ original unearths a vintage horror-punk charm.  It’s unfair to compare the re-recording and original with the aim of claiming a victor for just that reason.  It’s also not the point. Kepi Ghoulie and The Copyrights’ version is a fine example of celebrating the past by reliving it in the present, and offering an inroad for those that weren’t there twenty years back.  Mission accomplished.